


Devotion

by MarshmallowNerd



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bucky Barnes Feels, Drama, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22415209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarshmallowNerd/pseuds/MarshmallowNerd
Summary: In a world where fate connects soulmates by sending possessions lost by one to be found by the other, Bucky finds his through a personal loss.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Wanda Maximoff
Comments: 9
Kudos: 121





	Devotion

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a Tumblr prompt (soulmate AU where one soulmate finds what their other half loses). I honestly didn't think I would finish this story, but I've recently been stuck with my other projects, and this one simply took off instead. As I'm posting it, I'm even debating doing a sequel from Wanda's point of view. We'll see where it takes us!

Few things were ever truly lost. Anything that was left misplaced, or forgotten somewhere, or even purposefully sent into the void by one person would eventually be found by another. It was believed that these tokens were brought to them for safekeeping before falling into the ether, by the forces of fate that wills certain souls to find each other.

For the longest time, Bucky was convinced his soul had no such mate it was meant to find. Either that, or his soulmate was someone extremely well organized, having never lost a thing in their life. Though he knew that was highly unlikely. It wasn’t often talked about in the 1930s and ‘40s, but he knew some people were simply mateless. And that was fine by him. He thought it meant he was free to choose who he wanted to be with on his own, never having to wait for the greater design to align itself for him. And even when none of his dates worked out in the long run, Bucky still had his family. His mother, and his sisters, and his best friend, Steve. 

When the war started, being mateless suddenly became a blessing. He knew he could fight without anyone outside of his family (and Steve) worrying about him. He knew he was leaving no one behind to be mateless, alone, as he fell into the icy abyss of the Austrian Alps. He knew no one would be horrified to be tethered to him after he was dragged back to life, back into the clutches of Hydra, ruined and remade into something entirely new. There was no one to forget as he was made to forget himself.

But then things started appearing for the Winter Soldier. By that point, his captors had broken him. They had torn his mind apart so many times that he barely had a grip on his own humanity. Yet somehow, he knew that mysteriously receiving things that didn’t belong to him was unusual for him. Unusual, but not unwanted. Somehow, he knew those things were meant _for_ him, even though his handlers didn’t allow him to keep anything.

They started out small enough. First, he fell out of the cryo-chamber with a small red bandanna in hand, two of its corners tied in a loose knot. Then, while waiting in a holding cell to receive orders for his next mission, he found several crayons in his cot. Later on, he found a simple, if not messy, drawing beneath the cot of a brightly-colored house and a tree. They were all small enough to fit in the pouch at his utility belt, so he stored them there, as little secrets from his handlers. Things that were his, and his alone. Gifts from someone he didn’t know, but treasured with everything that was left of him. 

When they froze him again, those keepsakes were still safely hidden at his belt. And when they unfroze him, he found them still there. This time, they were accompanied by several small bits of paper. Notes from his soulmate, written in large letters by an unsteady hand.

_Are you there? I never found anything of yours_

_Other soulmates send things back. Where are you?_

_Mama says I love you. Or I will. I wonder if you will too_

The notes broke his heart. But they gave him hope at the same time. 

Someone outside of Hydra knew him. Someone was asking for him, waiting for him. He almost believed they could rescue him some day.

Then he was back in ice, his gifts still safely hidden.

The next time he woke, it was due to a malfunction in his cryo-chamber. It had become overfilled. He all but fell out of the metal tube, still half-frozen and disorientated, with items that didn’t belong to him (but he instinctively knew were meant for him) falling out with him. Dirtied, ash-covered books, burnt drawings, unraveling hair ribbons, flattened necklaces, broken pencils, melted chapstick tubes. His handlers were appalled, scrambling to repair the cryo-chamber. And to keep everything away from him. 

“Where the hell did this all come from?”

“It’s gotta be from a soulmate—”

“He has to be a hundred years old. How is his mate still alive?”

“Look at this—this is from a fuckin’ kid.”

Director Pierce was there. Quite possibly the only one that the Soldier feared enough to let himself be restrained as they took his gifts away from him, stuffing them into whatever trash bags could be found on hand. The Director was silent during most of the commotion, merely staring at a charred stuffed bear he’d picked up. It was still in his hand when he stalked over to where the Soldier was restrained in that godforsaken chair.

“You see this?” Pierce held up the bear to the Soldier’s eye-level. “This means you were meant to wait. Fate _wanted_ you here. ”

He didn’t want to acknowledge the very real possibility of that horrifying thought being true. That he was meant for this life, for endless fighting and loss and torture in every form. Instead, he only stared at the bear hanging by its arm from the Hydra Director’s grip, dust-coated eyes boring into the Soldier as if asking him for help. 

Pierce then retreated back the way he’d come, carelessly tossing the bear onto the floor on his way out. He stopped near the door to shell out orders at the agents left behind. “Wipe him. And burn everything.”

The Soldier’s body gave an involuntary jerk, nearly bending the metal restraints on each of his arms. 

None of the agents spared him any attention, continuing their previous work. Only one of them stopped, staring at the Director as if he didn’t understand the orders. “What if he gets more?”

“Burn that, too. He gets nothing. Neither of them do.”

The Soldier struggled against his restraints for the first time since he could remember (which admittedly, wasn’t long). When one agent patted him down, easily finding the pouch of his first few keepsakes, he snapped. As did the restraints on his metal arm. His artificial limb shoved the agent across the room, bashing their head against a wall. The contents of the pouch had been in their hand, and they spilled out onto the floor as the agent fell. With the Soldier’s flesh arm still strapped to the chair, he couldn’t do anything to save his gifts. He vainly reached for the red bandanna as it fluttered in the air near him, powered solely by the desperate thought of _mine! Mine!_

But the bandanna was snatched away, just like everything else. 

As punishment for acting out, they made him watch his gifts burn. The stuffed bear Pierce had grabbed sat at the very top of the destruction, still helplessly staring at the Soldier as it shriveled under the tongues of heat, eventually fading into an indistinguishable pile of ash.

He felt grief, then a bolt of electricity, and then nothing at all.

From then on, whenever he was brought out of the cryo-chamber, the things that appeared in the chamber with him were promptly burned. Always reminding him, despite his mind being successfully wiped of everything else, that there was someone meant for him, possibly looking for him, that he would never know. 

More often than not, he wondered if it was better that way. He was so weighed down by Hydra, and everything they did to him, and everything he kept doing _for_ them to survive. How could he ask someone—even someone fate itself had entwined his soul with—to be a part of that? 

That didn’t mean he stopped thinking about her, though. He would find her lost jewelry, scarves, and sometimes even notes. Her notes were now written in a neat, looping feminine scrawl over paper that never looked the same (sometimes even blatantly ripped from a book or magazine). He rarely caught so much as a glimpse of what was written before the notes were taken, burned. What little he did read of one never ceased to haunt him. Phrases like _I’m scared_ and _what could happen to me_.

He was scared for her. Above his own fear of Hydra, he was constantly scared that they read those notes before burning them. That they would figure out who his mate was before he could. That they would _hurt_ her, when she was clearly hurting enough as it was. It was a torture all its own, not knowing where she was, or if she was alright, or if it was safer for her to be at a distance from him.

His fear worked in Hydra’s favor, making him more obedient than physical abuse ever did. He served as their perfect soldier, in the hopes it gave them less incentive to search for her and use her against him. He killed whoever they asked him to. Tortured, abducted, and brutalized several others. All because he was afraid for her. He was afraid even when her gifts stopped coming. When it seemed like she had given up on him. Like she had tired of writing to a ghost. Or worse, something _had_ happened to her...

But then the assignment in Washington DC happened, and everything changed. All of a sudden, there was someone else who knew him. Someone who actually knew how he was trapped, and wanted to help him. Being a perfect soldier was suddenly a distant thought, abandoned in favor of placing the man on the bridge. The one who was _with you ‘til the end of the line_.

_Steve._

He remembered the name later on. After the helicarriers, and Director Pierce’s death, and everything that once united Hydra fell. A catastrophe just large enough for him to finally escape. And for two whole years, he was on his own. 

At first, he stayed in the shadows, only venturing into new places when they had information on Captain America, and SHIELD, and everything he _should_ have died with. Then he found a promising place to settle, where he could stay hidden and survive off the bare essentials of life. He was able to forge a tentative life there, away from the worries of Hydra tracking him, or having to face Steve after he’d nearly killed him. Eventually, he was even free from his fears something had happened to _her_. He had moved on from waiting for his mate to find him, to waiting for his memories to return to him. For his mind to heal by itself. It wasn’t a very promising process, but at least it was something. Something that was his again, safely hidden with him in the shabby walls of an apartment he found far off in Romania. 

That is, until one day, about a year into his secret life after SHIELD and Hydra both fell. He came home from the market to find a jacket sprawled out on his mattress that wasn’t like any of the ones he owned. Black with white stripes on each sleeve. Not quite thick enough to hide his metal arm. It looked made for someone of a leaner build, instead. He was startled at the sight of it, knowing all of his windows had been left closed and his door had remained locked. 

And then he realized. It was from her. 

She was still out there. 

He barely slept that night, his mind too frenzied as he held the jacket in his hands and wondered incessantly about it. Had she lost it on purpose? Was she still thinking of him? Or was it lost by accident, something he wasn’t meant to find? 

Was she _safe?_

In the morning, he received an answer. There was a note on the windowsill by his mattress, clearly meant for him. 

_I hope you’re out there. I suppose it would be just my luck to be mateless. But I really hope you have the jacket. It wasn’t mine to lose. It was my brother’s. I tried to throw it away because I was mad at him for leaving me. I shouldn’t have. I wish I hadn’t. Will you keep it safe for me? Please?_

He obsessed over that note for the rest of the day. He studied the little flourishes at the end of every word, the amount of pressure left by the pen, trying to gauge her mood as she wrote every line. He struggled with what he should do about what she had written. Struggled with the innate pull he had to her, to find her—to _love_ her—even though he hadn’t met her. Even though she doubted he was real at all. 

He knew he shouldn’t find her. He could only imagine her horror, her _rejection_ for someone like him, someone damaged the way he is. It was still a challenge simply to hold onto his name sometimes. The majority of things he remembered about himself could only be trusted as real memories because he had read about them in a museum. Whatever happened to her would only be made worse by becoming fully tethered to his fractured self.

But he could tell she was hurting. That the jacket meant a lot to her. Or at least, the person who gave it to her meant a lot to her. She regretted losing it. 

For better or worse, he _was_ her soulmate. The least he could do was comfort her. 

He went to one of the journals he had to save his memories in. He tore out a blank page and wrote a note of his own. Then he went to the window, letting the wind blow it out of his grasp before he could think twice of any of it. Two simple words, now lost to him. 

_It’s safe._

And it was. The rest of his evening was spent upturning the floorboard where he kept his emergency supplies, folding up the jacket and storing it in the backpack there. No matter what happened—no matter how his past caught up with him—he knew he would never forget it if it was in there. 

At the end of the day, just as he was settling over his mattress for another restless sleep, he found a new note on his windowsill. His heart immediately leapt into his throat at the sight, afraid of what it might say. Afraid of what she thought, now that she knew he was real. That he had simply been silent all her life thus far. _Choosing_ to ignore her, for all she knew.

Yet, he couldn’t ignore the faint marks staining the page.

He’d made her cry.

He unfolded the paper with shaking hands. And he found his anxiety turned out to be for nothing. _Thank you_ , was all it said.

He slept that night with the refolded note beside him on the mattress. Resting there as if it were actually her, as if he was actually curled around her, able to shield her from whatever kept hurting her. 

The next morning, there was another note on the windowsill. It sent the same vicious sense of dread through him as the last one had. And like that one before, he found his apprehension was entirely misplaced.

_I guess you figured out who I am. I understand now why you don’t want me. But I’m glad you’re alright, at least. And that I haven’t been talking to no one this whole time._

That took him aback. He was always so preoccupied with the idea of her not wanting him, it never occurred to him that she may misread their situation as the other way around. The thought worried him with how painful it had to be for her to believe that. 

He contemplated losing a note on purpose again, just to assure her the reason for his silence didn’t have anything to do with who she was. That he thought she was the one who wouldn’t want him. That she was better off without him. That he didn’t have anything of his own to lose to her anyways. That despite everything, he held onto what she lost to him because they felt like parts of her. Even though he didn’t know her, his soul did, and it pulled him to her. He wanted to know her. He wanted to find her so badly it _hurt_. 

He didn’t send her any of that, though. He didn’t send anything. He reverted back to silence and told himself it was better that way. Easier for her. Safer for them both.

If his silence did hurt her, it didn’t stop her from reaching out to him. Almost regularly, he began finding objects he didn’t own. Sometimes there were hair ties, rings, a bottle of nail polish, or a sock without its partner. Once there was a stuffed bear that smelled like popcorn and fried food, and had fur that was patterned after Captain America’s suit, which made his heart heavy. But most of the time, he found things that seemed too new to be hers. A pair of socks, a blanket, another jacket, all with tags still on them. Unopened bottles of water. Preserved snacks like crackers, pretzels, or candies.

After several months of that system, he began to wonder how she could lose things so efficiently. Especially those that seemed specifically meant for him. Mostly, though, he wondered how she didn’t tire of sending them when he never sent anything back. Not even something to assure he did want her, in light of her last note. It made every gift from her fill him with equal parts guilt and hope. He thought she deserved better than an unresponsive stranger, but nevertheless, she refused to give up on the bond between them. 

In all honesty, it did feel good to feel connected to someone else. To have something outside of the bare necessities of life to look forward to. Something to do besides worry if his mind would ever feel entirely like his own again. 

He was falling for her. Falling hard. If nothing else, he was already in love with the idea of her.

Of course, just when he was coming to terms with that, everything spiraled out of control again. 

It started with another note from her. A lonely piece of paper ripped from its notebook, waiting on his windowsill when he woke up in the morning. 

_Some things have come up,_ it read. _I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I do know I won’t have anything to lose for a while. I hope that’s ok._

For several seconds, it felt like his heart had stopped. What was happening where she was? Better yet, how could she still be so concerned with what he thought despite it? In spite of how neglectful he had been to her, leaving her in the dark for so long on his end?

Why hadn’t he been better? Why take her tireless concern for him for granted, and not once do so much as explain himself? Explain that he thought it safer to love her from a distance in return? _Why?_

He couldn’t lose her. Not with her thinking her soulmate didn’t want her.

He frantically sought out one of his own notebooks, repeatedly starting a message back to her, only to grow frustrated with himself and scratch it out. Over and over again, he doubted himself. He doubted his ability to both convey everything he felt for her and not worry her with the details of his own situation. All the while, his panic mounted over whatever was happening on her end. Whether his words would reach her in time, before anything happened to her. 

He didn’t even know her name. He had no idea who she could be, or _where_ she could be, and yet, he couldn’t stomach the thought of something happening to her. And worst of all, he wouldn’t even know if anything did.

In the end, all he managed to write back was, _Just be safe. I’m sorry I couldn’t reach you before._

He carried his note with him outside his apartment. He let it fall from his hand on his walk down the block. Watched it get swept under the tire of a passing car, and then become lost to him for good. 

He tried to spend some of his anxious energy on a venture into the marketplace. He always left himself some money in his jacket pocket for such an occasion as this, an impulsive trip away from his own thoughts. 

The marketplace was where he found potential harm befalling his soulmate was only the start to his life’s newest disastrous turn. He noticed people were actually noticing him, paying attention to his face. His face, which he soon found was on every newspaper stand in the neighborhood. He was being charged with a bombing he had no idea had happened until he first saw the headline. He was being accused of— _framed_ for something he wanted no part in. 

He almost couldn’t believe it. Almost. 

As per his nonexistent luck, things unraveled even more from there. The moment he came home to his apartment to find Steve standing there, he knew he had no chance of hiding from his past any longer. That isn’t to say he didn’t try; he had to be literally hunted down after fleeing from his apartment building. All the while, with his pack of emergency supplies strapped securely to his back. The life he had been slowly building for himself had to be left behind, save for the precious few personal belongings he’d stored among those supplies. His journals, filled with memories he couldn’t stand to lose again, and the jacket he had promised to keep safe for his mate. 

Once he was caught and restrained at the Interpol facility, they let him keep the few belongings he had near him. He knew better than to think of it as a privilege. It was a precaution taken against his soulmate. They didn’t want her to find anything of his, for risk he managed to send a message of his situation and convince her to aid him in an escape. 

As if he would ever burden her with that. 

He couldn’t remember how exactly he got out of there. He only remembered a haze of all-consuming dread, of memories of torture resurfacing in his mind, and then nothingness at all. When he came to, he was on the run again, this time with Steve and Steve’s friend, Sam Wilson. 

His only consolation was that Wilson had managed to save his pack of belongings for him. Bucky sat with it in his lap as he rode in the backseat of a tiny, cramped car Steve had found for them. He hugged it close and thought of the jacket, still kept safely inside. The one good thing he had managed to do for his mate. The one good thing he still had.

Of course, even that couldn’t last. He had to leave everything that was his behind again in favor of getting through another fight. This time it was to escape on a plane to Siberia, to thwart the doctor that was looking for the other Winter Soldiers. It was clear that this time, the people involved (both those standing with them and against them) meant something to Steve. However, Bucky’s only concern was getting through in time to reach the Hydra base in Siberia and stop whatever Zemo had planned. 

Well, that and getting out of the ordeal alive. The Wakandan king was hard-pressed to avenge his father’s death, and evidently, Bucky was still his primary suspect for the bombing that killed him. There was a brief moment where he managed to pin the soldier against a wall, and Bucky was wholly convinced he had met his end once and for all. 

And yet, in the seconds before the Black Panther’s claws could sink into his throat, the enhanced young woman that had arrived with Steve’s other friends had saved him. A scarlet mesh encased the Panther’s hand, a matching shade to that which was glowing at her hands nearby. With one swing of her arms, the Panther was thrown clear away from him as if pulled by the reddish light tangled around his claws. 

It was unbelievable. Not that he had been saved so closely (well, not _just_ that), but by her. Someone who didn’t know him—likely didn’t even know he was innocent in regards to the recent UN bombing. And in such a fascinating way, too, if the old science fan within him could be permitted a distracted, awe-struck thought like that under the circumstances. He’d overheard Steve and Wilson discussing her in passing, and mention that she was an enhanced, but he hadn’t fathomed it had been in such a fantastical way. 

He allowed himself only a moment more to watch the way she fought with that ethereal red around her before he re-entered the fray himself. He saw her only once more before finally reaching the jet they needed. She saved him and Steve both, with more of that scarlet energy that appeared to be tethered to her catching pieces of falling debris so they could make it past. At that rate, he and Steve were able to get away in time, but at the cost of leaving her and Steve’s other friends behind. 

He mused over that for nearly the entire flight to the Siberian base. He wondered what would happen to those left behind. Wondered if he was worth whatever would happen to them, even though he knew he _should have_ been worried if he and Steve would be enough to stop the other Winter Soldiers if Zemo unleashed them already. Or perhaps he should have been more worried about the belongings he had lost. Whether the journals full of his memories would make their way to her, literally spelling out who he was and why he avoided her for so long. And the jacket that had been her brother’s would likely be lost to the void altogether, as items lost by both mates were often believed to do. 

However, his mind remained with those of Steve’s team they had left behind. It was as if he knew he would see them again. As if some part of him knew deep down that he would see them after the skirmish in Siberia, after he and Steve narrowly escaped Stark’s rage. After he lost the metal arm. After the miracle that was Wakanda’s young king, T’Challa, realizing he was mistaken about the bombing and choosing to help them by allowing them to hide from the authorities in his homeland. 

It was there, in a safe house in the central city of Wakanda, that Bucky saw the team again. Steve had broken them out of some mysterious prison, and had even picked up Natasha at some point during the flight to the safe house. Natasha helped divvy up what possessions Steve managed to save for them from the prison’s storage. Most of their belongings had vanished for their soulmates to find, leaving them with just what their mates had lost in return.

Bucky was surprised to find his backpack, still full of his notebooks and his mate’s jacket, was among the items Steve had found at the prison. He had been so convinced it was lost, that it would have found its way to his mate by then (and the jacket lost entirely). 

He wondered why fate had saved those possessions for him for only a few seconds. Then his attention was caught by the enhanced female from the airport fight. She was the only one not engaging in the reunion with Steve and Natasha and everyone’s possessions. She stayed tucked away in a far corner of the room, her gaze a thousand yards away from the present. Clearly haunted by whatever had been done to her to keep her enhancements neutralized while they were all imprisoned.

Bucky’s heart went out to her. He blamed himself for her—for all of them—being sent there to begin with. It was enough to make him approach Natasha, to ask if he could take any of her possessions to her like some sort of proverbial olive branch.

Natasha only stiffened, not even sparing him a glance. “She doesn’t have anything.”

He found that hard to believe. “Not even from her mate?”

That was when Natasha looked up, her gaze hard with an unspoken warning not to question her. Maybe even a little protective of her younger teammate, too.

Bucky immediately backed off at that, reading what wasn’t said.

The Maximoff girl didn’t have a soulmate.

Once again, he felt his heart go out to her. He only remembered some fragments of his life before falling off the train, but among those fragments was the memory of how lonely it felt to slowly surrender to the idea of being mateless. Sure, at the time, he had tried to brush it off as an additional freedom. But from what he eventually learned of Wanda Maximoff’s situation from Steve, he figured she didn’t think having one less person standing with her was a plus. Being without someone designed by fate itself to know and understand her when so much of the rest of the world didn’t (and instead, feared her and treated her horribly) must have been just awful. 

To make matters worse, she was nice to him. As the person who had caused her to be imprisoned, and tortured, and shown firsthand just how much other people feared her for her abilities, he had expected her to hate him. Or at least spend the first few days angry with him, avoiding him or snapping at him whenever they crossed paths. Which wound up being very often, seeing how a majority of the time, they were the only ones that remained in the safe house. Lang and Barton left to negotiate their way back to their families, and Steve, Nat, and Wilson were essentially camping out in the safe house’s control center, seeking out ways to resume their duties as Avengers without being detected by the general authorities. 

And yet, whenever Bucky saw the Maximoff girl around the safe house, she was perfectly courteous to him. A little quiet, maybe, as she hadn’t quite shaken off whatever they had done to her at the Raft. But to be fair, he never offered any conversations of his own. He was too unsure of where he stood in her eyes to even know where to begin. So, for a while, they merely coexisted in companionable silence. Maintained a respectful distance at all times. Occasionally, she left things out for him, like an extra mug of coffee on the kitchenette counter or a spare blanket on the arm of the sofa. As undeserving as he felt for such niceties, he still accepted them. In fact, he was really fond of them. They reminded him of the various gifts his mate used to deliberately lose for him. 

He spent a lot of time thinking about her, too. His mate. As pressing as his situation was, trying to stay hidden as well as finding an effective recovery method for his battered mind, he still harbored concern for whatever was happening with her as well. Weeks went by, and he still hadn’t found anything of hers. He figured that could only mean her situation hadn’t changed.

A dark, painful part of him wondered if something had happened _to_ her. He had no way to know if it had. He would only have silence for the rest of his days. 

At night, when he didn’t want to sleep—he didn’t want to dream of being triggered by Zemo, of being made to attack Steve again, and nearly being killed by the Panther and Stark—he debated sending notes to her. Just to check on her, to ask how she was. But he always decided against it, telling himself it would be cruel to get her hopes up. To break his own silence, and let her believe he was going to find her, like he thought she would when he first started receiving things during his time with Hydra. 

He was still a fugitive. He still couldn’t trust his own mind. He couldn’t put that on her. 

So, he merely held onto the few things he had. His notebooks and the jacket. He even took the latter out of his backpack one night, hanging it on the back of the desk chair in his room. A self-reminder that it was still there. The one good thing he had done for her. He had kept it safe, had kept his promise to her.

He could only hope it would stay safe during his treatment with the Wakandan medical team. They wanted to put him in cryo-freeze, claiming it would be the quickest way to get his brain neurons “rebooted” (as the princess and head of the operation phrased it). He didn’t know what would become of his possessions while he was there. If they would be swept up into the ether after his brain was worked on. Maybe even as he forgot them. He couldn’t imagine forgetting them at the moment, not when he’d promised to keep the jacket safe, and certainly not when he had so much information about himself in the journals. But there was no telling what would become of his mind after the procedure.

That’s what brought him here, sitting in the kitchen of the safe house, in the dead of the night, mulling over whether or not he would consent to the treatment in the morning. He had already talked it over with Steve, and it was clear that Steve wasn’t for it. He said he didn’t want Bucky to have to undergo a procedure so similar to what Hydra put him through for so many years. Although, deep down, Bucky sensed what his friend really wanted was to not lose any more time with each other. Bucky figured that was sure to happen either way, since he didn’t trust himself enough to go with Steve when he and the rest of his friends left to carry out their rogue missions. 

He couldn’t go on not trusting his own mind. He needed the treatment.

But could he risk losing the few possessions he still had? Could he trust fate to let him hold onto them another time?

He ran his one remaining hand through his hair, leaning onto the kitchen table wearily. Hating his own indecisiveness. Hating being in this position. Why did it have to be this way? What had he done to deserve this life?

“What did you say to him?”

He tensed at the surprise of another presence there, and an unfamiliar voice at that. He had to consciously remind himself that he was in a safe place, so he didn’t need to be so on edge. Turning in his chair, he found only the Maximoff girl there, in the middle of the living area behind him. It had only been a month since Steve freed her from the Raft, so she was still clearly carrying the weight of the experience on her shoulders. She even presently bore a thin blanket around her shoulders like a shawl. Or like a shield. Though despite that, she stood firm and poised. Defensive.

“Steve? What did you tell him?” she pressed as she stepped closer to him, making him realize he hadn’t answered her.

“What do you mean?” he asked, too taken aback by the fact that she had broken her silence around him to manage much else.

“He was upset when I went to check on them. Was it because of your conversation earlier?”

He was still too stunned to respond right away. He didn’t know whether to be affronted by the insinuation he would say something to intentionally hurt his friend, or to be comforted that Steve’s new friends seemed to be just as protective over him as Bucky had once been. “I just told him about my meeting with the medics today. They want to put me in cryo-freeze, and I…I think I’m gonna let ‘em.”

He remembered Steve’s reaction when he’d first heard. Remembered the questions, the _why’s_ that made it sound like he was choosing to abandon his friend. 

But the witch— _Wanda_ —didn’t hound him at all. Didn’t imply any such selfishness on his part. In fact, her previous hostility instantly melted into something softer. He almost believed she was concerned about him, even though they were barely acquaintances at the moment. “You would be comfortable with that?”

“I’m…I mean, why wouldn’t I be?”

Some of her previous tension returned in her shoulders, fingers absentmindedly pulling the blanket tighter around herself. “Isn’t that what you had to go through when you were…back there?”

That confused him. He knew what she was referring to, but didn’t know how she knew. He had his suspicions—he knew the full extent of her abilities, after all. But he didn’t want to think she had been in his mind. That was something he went through during his time at Hydra he didn’t think he could ever bear to experience again. It was so invasive, and had been so integral to their ability to control him for so long.

“How do you know?” he asked aloud. 

His suspicion must have made his voice too hard, for she stepped back and shrank in on herself as if ashamed, even though her answer wound up having nothing to do with reading his mind. “I know their ways. They threatened to put us under as a punishment a few times.”

That only fed his confusion. “You were there?”

She seemed to share his puzzlement, a small wrinkle forming between her brow. “That’s where I was enhanced. I thought Steve told you?”

Steve had told him about her enhancements, yes. Even some of her past, like her internment at the Avengers’ Facility and the shock collar used to contain her at the Raft. But he hadn’t been told _that_ much about her. They had been coexisting here for over a month now, and he’d never taken the time to realize just how much of the past they shared. How much opportunity he’d had all along to be there for her, and make up for his initial guilt of sending her into this life as an international fugitive. 

“No.” With a slight shake of his head, he lowered his gaze to the floor. “I’m sorry. That must have been hell.”

She didn’t say anything to that. But for whatever reason, she didn’t leave, as per what he expected her to do once this exchange was over. He didn’t know what else to do with that besides keep the conversation going. So, he asked what he had been wondering about ever since he first saw her use her powers. “How do they work? Your enhancements?”

She met his gaze firmly, suddenly defensive again. “I’m not in your head, if that’s what worries you,” she stated, clearly forcing herself to keep her voice cool. He saw a bit of Natasha’s training in her there. “I don’t do that without permission. Not anymore…”

As much as that was a relief to know, he was more concerned with putting her at ease. “No, I wasn’t worried. I just wanted to know. They…stood out to me. I mean…I never did thank you for using them to save me during the airport episode, did I?”

Now she was avoiding his gaze with a small shake of her head. “Don’t. Please. It’s not necessary. Believe me, I know they’ve done more harm than good.” 

She sounded so defeated at that last part. So low, and ashamed, even though the abilities she was referring to were such a prominent part of her. He realized she must have internalized more negativity towards her powers because of the entire Accords and Raft affair than he originally thought. He was used to self-loathing in himself, but she seemed too good to harbor it at the same level as him. And whatever track record she did have because of those powers, it surely couldn’t have been as bad (or at least, not as long) as his. It didn’t seem right for her to beat herself up over it as strongly as he did for his.

_None_ of this was right.

“That’s not true,” he insisted before he could stop himself.

She grimaced in disbelief, tugging on the edges of her blanket again. “How can you know that?”

He didn’t know. His mind wasn’t even entirely cooperative with him anymore. But he did know he couldn’t let her go on thinking so lowly of herself either. 

“What if you did look in my head?”

That puzzled wrinkle returned to her brow. “What?”

She stared at him like she didn’t understand what he was saying. Like she didn’t believe it. In all honesty, he couldn’t believe it either. “You’re not bad. So, how bad can the things you’re capable of truly be? I doubt it can be any worse than what _they_ did to me.”

Nothing could be worse than Hydra. 

She took a few steps back, looking for all the world like a spooked pup. “No…no, no, you can’t. I…I won’t put you at risk.”

“It can’t be worse than what’s already been done,” he repeated. “And I…I really don’t want to leave my friend again.” At the mention of Steve—particularly how he was connected to him—he suddenly felt distant from his own body. Like he was simply overhearing his own voice grow smaller as he bared his vulnerabilities. “I don’t want to go under. I know what it’ll remind me of. But Steve tells me you don’t need anything like that as a buffer. You just…see things directly.”

Even in the poor lighting, he could see everything that crossed her face as he made the offer. Or rather, as the sound of genuine intrigue could be heard in his voice. As if she was just now believing that he was actually interested in her powers, solely out of curiosity over how they worked and how they could be helpful. Although, there was still an underlying dread over the possibility of something going wrong. Of being unable to trust herself, probably not unlike how he didn’t trust his own mind. Her gaze darted around the room, as if looking for support. Or perhaps an excuse to escape. 

He didn’t mean to push her. He didn’t want to do anything to make her more uncomfortable. He’d only meant to make her feel better. To do _one_ good thing for someone who went through as much as she did (partially because of him). 

Eventually, she broke the silence that fell between them, her voice soft and careful. “When do you have to talk to the medics again?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

She nodded in acknowledgment, slowly slipping back into a pensive silence. He watched for her to think it over, somehow patient and anxiously restless as he waited for her answer. Briefly, he wondered if she could sense his mixed emotions, if that was another quality of her powers. If that was more mental input she constantly had to battle alongside whatever was in her own mind. She did a remarkable job masking that struggle, if it was so.

In the end, she didn’t answer him. She turned and left the room wordlessly, retreating back into her room with an expression of uncertainty still etched into her youthfully pretty face.

He watched her go like a mindless idiot. And once he’d processed it had really happened, that she’d left without answering him, he sat there at the breakfast table a while longer in equal parts disappointment at the lack of answer and embarrassment to have bothered her in the place. 

Needless to say, he didn’t sleep well that night. Rather, he sat in his own room, worrying over everything and nothing all at once. He could feel himself beginning to nod off in the early hours of a new morning, only to have a knock at his door startle him back to full alertness soon after. He hesitated at first, wondering if it had just been a result of his scrambled, sleep-deprived brain paired with wishful thinking someone would come for him (save him, in a sense) before he and Steve left to meet with the Wakandan medical team again. 

There was a second, and then third knock that prompted him to finally get up. From the light, timid sound of it, he knew who it was even before he answered. 

Wanda looked the same as she had when she left him some hours earlier. Apprehensive, yet tempted by his offer. It looked as though her night had been just as mentally tumultuous as his, and now she didn’t even have her blanket from before to serve as a proverbial shield, leaving her to channel her uncertainty into absentmindedly fiddling with her fingers.

“I can try it once,” she said quickly, like she was trying to get the words out before she changed her mind. “Just so you know what it’s like. So you know what all of your options are.”

He knew a part of him had been hoping to hear something along those lines. And now that the opportunity was here before him, he suddenly felt as though he couldn’t accept it. 

“You don’t have to,” he told her. “I didn’t mean to make it seem like you did. I can go under—”

She shook her head, suddenly looking adamant. “No. You don’t have to. If I can…if it makes you uncomfortable, you should be able to choose a better alternative. And I…” She faltered, glancing down at her hands for a long second. “I need to try again. To feel like myself, I mean. If it’s even still possible…”

She trailed off oddly there. He didn’t ask about it. 

“OK,” was all he said. He even gave a small nod of encouragement, realizing she truly did need this just as much as he did. She needed to see that she was still capable of something good. 

“Do you want to come in?” he offered a moment later, sparing his room only a fleeting, self-conscious glance. Which was ridiculous; there wasn’t anything to be self-conscious by. There was hardly anything at all. There was only the plain desk, chair, and bed that had been in each of the bedrooms in the safe house when they first arrived. The only things of his were the half-filled notebooks sitting in the backpack by the desk, and the jacket from his soulmate hanging on the back of the chair. Maybe deep down he was concerned about the latter, and having to address the fact that he—as dark, and corrupted, and awful as he and the things he had done were—had a soulmate while someone as good, and considerate, and caring as her had none. 

It was too late now. With a soft breath to compose herself, she accepted his offer with a stiff, “Sure.”

He stepped aside without another thought, allowing her to pass through the threshold to his room. He didn’t miss the way she hugged her arms around herself, as if reaching for the protection of the blanket she’d had before. She made her way to the center of the room at a cautious pace, as if equally self-conscious about being in his room, in the space reserved for him. He didn’t offer any words of consolation. Instead, he only lingered near the door, waiting for her to get more comfortable with the situation on her own. 

Suddenly, he heard her suck in a sharp breath. He might not have noticed if not for his enhanced hearing. It prompted him to look up, catching sight of her freezing in place by the desk, mere inches beside the chair where the jacket hung. He froze as well once he realized she was staring at it. She set a hand on top of it. Her back was to him, so he couldn’t read her expression, but he could easily imagine what was coming. Why he only saved this one thing. Why it was so important above everything else he’d had in Romania. The question of his soulmate. How fate could let him have one, even though he treated her terribly and had ruined the lives of so many others and their loved ones. 

It seemed like an eternity before she gave another loud, unsteady breath. Then the first question. “Where did you get this?”

He could have lied. Made something up to spare her feelings, and avoid what was surely an uncomfortable topic for her. But then again, she was here to look inside his mind and see if she could ease the parts of it that were hard to live with. She was sure to find out about his soulmate either way. 

“My soulmate lost it,” he admitted softly. “They asked me to keep it safe after their brother left, so…” 

He shrugged dismissively, even though the witch wasn’t facing him to see it.

Her fingers curled into the fabric of the jacket. For another heartbeat or so, she simply stared at it. And then she was pulling it up. Bucky’s heart skipped a little as she did, causing him to remind himself to relax when he remembered she had posed no threat to him thus far. She wanted to help him, even. She had no reason to do harm to one of the few possessions he still had.

He caught a glimpse of her face as she turned to grip the jacket with both hands. She pulled it wholly off of the chair, slowly raising it to her face. Bucky noticed then that her eyes were glossy with restrained tears. They slipped shut as she pressed her nose into the black material, her grasp becoming impossibly tighter around it. She croaked something out, the words muffled by the fabric, but still distinguishable to his enhanced hearing.

“It still smells like him.”

The world seemed to grind to a halt. His mind felt like it was spinning out with it, with the realization of what she meant. With the disbelief that it was even possible. That she knew where it came from.

It was hers. It had been her brother’s.

No. It wasn’t possible. She didn’t have a mate. Natasha had revealed that much.

But did Natasha know for sure? She could have easily reached that conclusion on her own when Wanda’s mate was silent the entire time the two women knew each other. 

Oh, God. _He_ was her mate. The more he thought it, the more he could feel it in his bones to be true. He knew as he continued to watch her, seeing her eyes peel open and free the tears that had gathered. They shone in the light from the sunrise that peeked through the window above the desk, trailing down her face. 

His soulmate’s eyes. His soulmate’s face.

His _soulmate._

He’d found her, and he hadn’t even known it.

When she finally looked to him again, her expression erased any trace of doubt that lingered in his mind. The way her gaze settled on his face, the way those eyes filled with inexplicable recognition… She knew he was hers. 

His brain failed him. He felt like he was being pulled in different directions, his very soul urging him to go over to her, and his mind’s self-doubt urging him to run, to protect her, _still,_ from having to become attached to him and all of the things he carried with him. It left him stuck in his place, uselessly staring as _she_ was the one who ventured closer. She paused when only one step remained between them, hugging the jacket to her chest as if her brother was still in it. In only one more stride she could be standing flush against him. He could feel his soul aching for that, insisting he tuck her close with the one arm he left Siberia with. 

That memory of what happened to him—one of the numerous things that ruined him—reminded him of all of his previous inhibitions. This wasn’t supposed to be this way. _He_ wasn’t supposed to be this way. He was supposed to be a well-groomed, confident, _normal_ gentleman not yet touched by the horrors of war. He was supposed to have reached this discovery after he saw her in passing somewhere in Brooklyn, just a few blocks away from where he’d grown up with his family. Their souls were supposed to have recognized each other over the course of a proper courtship, and he was supposed to feel his entire world realign itself into a brighter, completed lens as he kissed her on her front doorstep after walking her home one night. 

And yet, fate had brought them here, instead. Both homeless, taking refuge in a hidden pocket of the world, and shell-shocked from the various events that had happened in the decades-worth of time it had taken for them to find each other. 

He waited so long for her.

“I tried to save everything,” he heard himself say. “I held onto all of it, but…you know why I…?”

He stopped once he realized she was nodding, a small empathetic smile touching the corners of her mouth. “Yeah.”

Of course she would know. She had been there. She had received her enhancements there. 

Her eyes traveled across his face, glistening with more unshed tears. The emotion bled into her voice, making it thick. “They hurt you, didn’t they? For the things I lost when I was little?” 

She was already giving a knowing nod before he could answer. Then her face crumpled, one of her hands coming up to cover her mouth. “Oh…the bomb…”

Something painful knotted up in his chest at the untold story there. He thought of the destruction that comes with a bomb, and how well it aligned with his memory of suddenly receiving a huge influx of lost items from her, all in a certain degree of burnt or crushed. He thought of the stuffed bear, its pleading eyes as it was reduced to ash still haunting him. Then the knot settled into his gut as something heated and angry, molded by the primal urge to protect his mate from whoever dared to try hurt her. To unleash a _bomb_ on her. 

Right now, though, protection didn’t seem to be what she needed. Whatever had happened had long passed, leaving him only with her grief from it. With her guilt for how much he had received on his end. His want to amend the self-loathing he’d seen in her the night before increased tenfold. 

“They kept me going,” he insisted. “Knowing somebody was out there, waiting for me on the other side…”

She choked out a sob.

Right. She _hadn’t_ been on the other side.

God, all the things he’d done to please Hydra, to keep their attention off her…a fat lot of good it had done. Was that why she was there? Did they find her because they knew? Had his worst nightmare been true, and he just never knew?

“Even when I got out,” he went on, feeling everything he had wanted to tell her during all that time bubbling to the surface, “I wanted to keep you safe, so I…I thought it would be better to stay away. I thought you wouldn’t want…all of this. But I _never_ stopped wanting you.”

Her chin quivered at that, a tear streaming down each cheek. It was only a small condolence that despite that, she wore a genuine (albeit bittersweet) smile. She nuzzled her face into her brother’s jacket again as if to hide it.

Her voice cracked around another sob. “You were right there. _Right there_ with us. And I never…I’m sorry! I’m sorry I—”

His body moved on its own accord, his sole remaining hand coming up to cradle her cheek. It was unlike him to touch a stranger, much less without their permission first. But deep down, it didn’t feel as though she was a stranger. Their souls knew each other—had probably been tangled together since the beginning of time. “Don’t be sorry. You didn’t know—”

She shook her head, unconvinced. “I should have known. I should have…” 

Her breath hitched. It took a heartbeat for her to gather herself, to be capable of something solid. “You deserve someone who would have saved you.”

His heart ached. It would be a lie to say he hadn’t wanted that, or that he hadn’t hoped for it when he first realized he had a soulmate in the modern world. But knowing what she had gone through as well, even as little of it as he presently did, he couldn’t blame her for just trying to make it through. 

“You survived your end of it. That’s enough. It's all I could have asked for.”

He could hear her swallow hard, struggling with that. Yet, she made no motion to move away, to retreat further into her remorse. He thought that was a promising sign over whether to touch her face again, this time sweeping away some of her tears with his thumb. 

“Thank you,” he added softly, “for not giving up on me. I know it couldn’t have been easy, thinking I wasn’t there.” 

Now she moved to hold his face, one-handed as well, for her left arm was still keeping her brother’s jacket securely pinned to her chest. “It’s alright. I figured we were different after you sent the second letter. Maybe even a little before then…”

Her hand traveled up to his hair, combing through it a few times. It was grounding and comforting. It made his heart hurt. 

He didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve to know his mate at all.

He was never going to let her go.

She was the one who eventually pulled away, rubbing the last of her tears away from her eyes with the backs of her fingers. “I’m sorry,” she said with a breathy, embarrassed laugh. “I’m not usually like this. I just…I didn’t think this would ever happen. Do you, um…do you know what I’ve done?”

Bucky gave half a grin, feeling a little sheepish himself. “You really haven’t been in my head, have you?”

That attempt to lighten the mood fell flat. 

With a deep breath, he braced himself for something graver. “Do you know what _I_ did?”

She nodded, making his heart stutter anxiously. “The gist of it. Steve said you never had a choice, though.”

_I think I did, actually_. Those words got caught in his throat. It wasn’t likely his mate wanted to hear that he could have let himself be killed by choosing not to obey his captors’ orders. 

Damn, there was still so much she didn’t know about him. A part of him was still afraid she would reject him for his past. And yet, another, bigger part of him could sense that she wouldn’t. Their souls were connected for a reason. Evidently, there was still a lot about her own past he needed to learn. Things that were past that she was hesitant to share with him, as well. Surely, she would understand what he had behind him, just as he was willing to understand anything she had herself. 

Still…

“I’m sorry you had to wait so long. I’m sorry _I_ made you wait so long,” he said in crushing sincerity. Maybe if he had only tried… _something_ different, he would have found her sooner. He could have been the one to realize she was trapped the same way he was. Could have spared her some of the horrors she had faced under Hydra. Maybe he could have spared them _both_ some of that pain, and gotten them out.

But would they be as connected now without that common ground?

“Sergeant?”

He didn’t realize how far he’d fallen into his thoughts until she brought him back with her voice and with her touch. She had slung her brother’s jacket over her shoulder, so now she was able to hold his face between both hands, as if to directly pull his distanced gaze back to her.

“James,” he blurted once he processed what she had called him. “It’s James Buchanan Barnes, actually. Steve calls me Bucky, but I…” _But I don’t know if I’m that person anymore._ “But you can call me whatever you want.”

That made her smile, a sight that filled him with a sense of warmth and inner peace. “Alright. And you can call me Wanda.”

“OK…Wanda,” he said softly, like it was a closely-guarded secret. Like some part of him was afraid that by acknowledging that he’d found her, accepting it, and letting his guard down, he would be inviting misfortune to steal it away from him. He already had the last few decades of his life taken away, as well as his home, and his grip on his own sense of self, and one of his arms. How could he trust fate to let him hold onto her?

Wanda swept a thumb along the apple of his cheek. He all but melted into the touch, its carefulness making him feel like something precious and delicate. Maybe to her, he was.

He loved it. He loved _her._

He couldn’t leave her. She had given him so much, and had tried so hard to take care of him from afar, sending him things like food and water and supplies, even after he confirmed he was there, doing nothing to return the gesture.

But now he could. He was here in front of her. He could offer himself and his time to her, to finally make up for not being there before.

“I’m not going under,” he decided aloud. “I can’t leave now. After all you did for me while I was—”

“No,” she interrupted gently. “If you need it, James—”

“I’ll ask them to find another way. Maybe if you’re still willing to help—”

“Of course I am.” She looked a tad affronted at the idea otherwise. “I just…I’m still afraid of doing something wrong. Making it worse.”

“You won’t,” he insisted, surprising even himself with how confident he sounded. “I told you, I trust you. And nothing you do can be worse than what’s already there.”

“James—”

“And if you say you need to try this, then I want to give you the chance to do it. You’ve given me so much, that I…I owe you this, at least.” 

“No, you don’t,” she insisted, voice suddenly hard. “You don’t owe me anything. That’s not why I did any of it.”

He nodded his understanding. He hadn’t meant to hold on to the debt-system that ruled his time in Hydra. 

“And I would give you more,” she added, her voice becoming soft again, “if I had anything of mine left.”

“Why? After I left you alone for so long?”

“You did what you thought you had to. You _survived._ That’s enough.”

It wasn’t enough. Not to him. Not unless he made it up to her, now that he had a chance to give her as much as she had given him. To show her how much the gifts she lost for him meant to him. How much he’d wanted to show her he loved her in the same way she had shown him. 

She must have been able to sense his disquiet. She gently pulled him closer, bringing his forehead to rest against hers, and whispered, “It’s alright. We’ll be alright now.”

Having her so close to him again seemed to defeat any semblance of self-control he’d had thus far. He first nuzzled her nose, taking in her unique, spice-like scent. Then he was holding her face with his one remaining hand, and they were so close, he could feel the warm brush of her breath over his lips just before she kissed him. Or maybe he kissed her. He couldn’t entirely tell, since they were both surprised by it. But she didn’t pull away, and he didn’t let go of her. 

It wasn’t overwhelming like he had always been led to believe soulmates coming together for the first time would be. It wasn’t ravenous passion. It was light and timid. It was comforting. It was like coming home. It was _them._

He peppered more kisses along her jaw, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her flush against him the way his soul had been longing for since it first recognized her. He could feel his soul finally settle as he did, lifting some of the proverbial weight from his history of loneliness and inept self-healing off of him. It was the greatest relief he had felt in years.

They wound up on his bed after that. The sleepless night was quick to catch up with Wanda, and she nodded off the moment she laid down at his invitation to get some rest. She fit perfectly against his side (which he supposed made sense, given that their souls had been specifically designed to suit each other), with her head tucked beneath his chin. It didn’t go unnoticed by him how her fingers stayed curled into his shirt, as if she didn’t trust he wouldn’t disappear as she dozed. To be fair, he was just as defensive, keeping his remaining arm wrapped around her middle. The rise and fall of her stomach from her soft, steady breaths beneath his hand finally lulled him into a comfortable sleep as well. A comfortable, but brief sleep.

Steve came for him after what felt like mere minutes. He knocked on the door thankfully low, so it didn’t wake Wanda. He stepped in cautiously at first, then paused and tensed when he noticed Wanda was there. Even from across the room, Bucky could still see the emotions that crossed his friend’s face. The dismay, bewilderment, incredulity, and simple curiosity all appeared within the span of a single heartbeat. 

“Is everything OK?” Steve asked softly. 

Bucky wasn’t sure how to answer. How to explain that after several decades, Steve’s mateless friend had discovered that he had a soulmate after all? And it was the only member of Steve’s rogue team of heroes that was currently more disputed than Bucky himself, no less. Not to mention, they had been living together for over a month now, and yet never once noticed their connection to each other, let alone thought to tell their Captain about it. 

Bucky had _finally_ found his soulmate. He didn’t know what would come of it, or how it would change his approach to the current state of his life and mind. But he wanted it to be OK. Now that he had an opportunity to reciprocate the devotion his mate had showed him, and the love he had felt for her from afar, he really wanted whatever else that was to come to turn out OK. 

“It will be,” he promised.


End file.
